Summary: Bestselling author Rachael Johns takes you back to Hope Junction and the characters from Jilted.

Nurse Lauren Simpson is known in Hope Junction for the wrong reasons – and she’s over it. Watching the man she’s always loved marry someone else is the last straw – she decides to get out of Hope. But her resolve is tested when the hot new locum doctor arrives in town.

Doctor Tom Lewis also has skeletons in his closet – including a painful breakup and devastating family news. He’s hit the road with his vintage ute and surfboard, to travel the outback and live in the moment.

When Tom and Lauren meet the attraction is instant, but for Lauren Tom threatens to be just another fling and Tom has his own reasons for hesitating. Everyone else – their friends and patients – can see how perfect they are together, but just what will it take for them to admit this to themselves?

A brand new Hope Junction story of fresh starts and second chances.

Title: The Road to Hope
Series: Hope Junction  #2
Author: Rachael Johns
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Released: 1st March 2015
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Format: paperback
Source: ARC for an honest review via Publisher - thank you

I am a big fan of Rachael Johns and was very excited to receive her latest. I hadn’t read Jilted but it didn’t cause any confusion throughout. The Road to Hope was a fabulous Australian read and I loved the fun characters and the small town know all gossip. As always, Ms Johns has a fabulous writing style, I was totally addicted and with realistic emotions I was caught up in Laurie’s drama.

Lauren Simpson (Laurie) is a nurse at the local hospital and loves her job. She doesn’t feel appreciated and the town believes she’s the “town slapper”.  Seeing the love of her life walk down the aisle with another woman, Laurie is determined to change her ways and become a good girl. She has made a plan to leave the small town of Hope Junction and move onto bigger and better things and hopefully find the love of her life in the process.

Living by herself with her parent’s overseas and her brother, Frank, in Nepal, Laurie feels all alone. Her best friend has her mind stuck on babies and doesn’t seem to realise how hurt Laurie is.

Just as the ceremony ends, the Grandmother of the groom takes a turn and Laurie goes to the rescue. Thinking it could be dehydration and heat related, she is taken to hospital to get checked out. Dr Bates is heading on holidays and the new locum, Dr Tom Lewis will be taking over. He was tall, dark, broad-shouldered and extraordinarily handsome. But Laurie is determined to be the good girl.

When she arrived home after the wedding reception, she found a strange Ute in her driveway and the lights on inside. Laurie grabbed her jack out of the car and headed inside ready to whack the intruder. When the door opened, there was a hot man standing there wearing only boardies. It took her a minute to recognise the man as Dr Lewis, the new locum.

It appears Laurie will be having a visitor for a few months and now maybe regrets the change of rules with this hot eligible doctor living in her house. But she’s still determined to stick to her guns. Trying everything she can to deter Dr Delicious from flirting, Laurie carries on with her daily routine.

The more time they spend together the stronger their feelings and attraction become. But Tom is hiding a massive secret of his own and knows he doesn’t want a long term relationship. The see-saw of feelings and actions towards each other would give anyone whiplash, but can these two overcome reputations and secrecy to be together?

What is Tom hiding? Will Lauren end up leaving Hope Junction? Can she continue to be the good girl with Dr Delicious in her house?

Watch the relationship unfold and discover the strength that people find once they’ve found love. I adored the older patients in residential care at the hospital and the antics they get up to. From painting nails to dancing to playing board games, it was inspirational and light-hearted fun. I am certainly looking forward to reading more fun romances from Ms Johns, with the next being, The Patterson Girls due out in October 2015.

THE SERIES:

About the Author

Rachael is an English teacher by trade, a mum 24/7, a supermarket owner, a chronic arachnaphobic and a writer the rest of the time. She rarely sleeps and never irons. She lives in rural Western Australia with her hyperactive husband, three mostly-gorgeous heroes-in-training, two fat cats, one naughty dog and a very cantankerous budgie.

At 17 Rachael began writing enlightened by the thought that she could create whatever ending she liked and so she embarked on a Bachelor of Arts in Writing. Almost fifteen years later, after joining the Romance Writers of Australia, she finally achieved her goal of publication. Since then Rachael has finaled in a number of competitions, including the Australian Romance Readers Awards. JILTED (her first rural romance) won Favourite Australia Contemporary Romance in 2012 and she was voted in the Top Ten of Booktopia’s Favourite Australian Author poll in 2013.

Rachael loves to hear from readers and can be contacted via her website – www.rachaeljohns.com She is also on Facebook and Twitter.